Shouldn't…but Do

I am a woman of a certain age.  Never a beauty, I was passable.  Not cute.  Heads do not turn when I enter a room, unless I trip, or to gawk at hats and decor I am fond of wearing on my head from time to time.

I have been watching my hands for years.  Hands are honest.  They show wear and tear, not afraid to admit their age.

My hands are thin, venous, too cold come winter.  Once solid, industrious, my hands  flicker now, sparklers cutting through a 4th of July night, working harder than ever, infrequently at rest.

Older things travel south.  People seeking warmth, skin sloughing, unwilling to hold up any longer.  Crinkling, crystallizing skin – once unimaginable except on my mother – is now my own.  But loss of surface tension is not such a bad thing.

Years ago I saw a magazine picture of an old woman, her body receded with age, leaving bright blue eyes of startling intensity and depth.  Presence, warmth, connection,  far more beckoning than magazine covers of physical perfection.

Life experience is worn by  people of every age – in gesture, posture.  But with time,  the hands, and the eyes, have it.  Eyes carry much – dull anticipation, utility, warmth.

Young eyes carry questions.  Sometimes older eyes seem burdened by  answers.  The converse is true as well, youth hardened by their truth, older folks twinkle with knowing, even wisdom.

After the first half of life, the business is about living and leaving.  Requires taking stock.  Some did not get what they wanted, brittle, shellacked, dull, sometimes quick to anger.  Eyes need.

Others loved, lost, loved, lost, the exercise stretched and warmed them, resilient, kind eyes ahead into the world.

Emptiness lingers around both kinds – the first, a hollowness.  The second, a fullness that seeks to expand into, not fill, emptiness.

Hollow people, by this age, are difficult to fill, except perhaps on deathbed.  A daring statement to be sure, but I wager its truth.

Full people – like the aged woman in the photograph –  spill beyond their relaxing skin.  Not waiting for death to release them, they flow out, between, refusing to recognize interloping walls and miles.

Entwining with colours, people, and space that surrounds them, Full people hold hands with the world, past, present and potential.  They are not empty, cannot fill those who are.  The secret of these folks is that by being, they are becoming.

Forever half empty, forever half full.

Eventually even hands fall away, eyes say it all.  A warm breeze on the cheek,  attention called away, one more smile, and on it goes.